The Shameful Lamb
by inbetweendimensions
Summary: Every child is born unto hunger. The story of how the sun comes to bleed, following the trials of a young girl as she grows in a slightly different Skyrim world. This will follow a skeleton of the Dawnguard questline.
1. Before We Were Born

_Everything here is either influenced or created by Bethesda._

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**I. BEFORE WE WERE BORN**

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Ignoring the numb shaking of her fingers, Hales spun Frost's reinstrings around her palms, clenching them tightly in her sweaty hands. There was a slow, painful thumping against her temples, her ears burning hot and the back of her throat stung a dry itch. An untested curse stumbled from her lips when the heavy oak doors slammed open, but when the suit of armour clunked in to bludgeon her with his warhammer she had already mounted the horse, her legs merely tapping his velvety sides before he understands the urgency of their flight.

Frost, as Hales expected, is swift and intelligent, thundering through the tight aspen trees with fluid certainty, the arrows that whiz past them never deterring his steadfast stride. She trusts him in no time to lead her away from the danger, and when the obscenities have died out to the miles she closes her eyes against the glare of a sinking sun, inhaling the free autumn air, its cold wind gracing them as Frost galloped on. Time was lost to the fluttering of hair, white and black. She forgets their strings, bare hands clutching tight into the strands of Frost's straight mane and he slows into a canter for her. She sees, for the first time in weeks, the dark wild of star-clustered sky. "Good horse," she sighed, breathless, gruffly stroking the palomino coat of his neck.

Hales would give anything to have a steed like Frost. Her body is, as the local Nords often imposed, ill-suited to a life beyond metropolis. The first days in this new harsh tundra were spent squatting in the smoke of hearth-warmed inns, face, chest and spindly limbs bundled in an odd assemblage of scrapped rags and furs. In time her skin grew used to the biting climate, but she would never play well in brutal Nord-style battle, and while a light build was extremely desirable among the prowling crooks of Riften, it was a great disadvantage against tall mountains and even taller bandits. To have a swift and hardy horse like Frost would be earning her freedom from the city walls, from the red-faced highwaymen that were accustomed to cleaving in two anything that moved suspiciously against the white snow.

Within minutes Hales spotted her quarry camped at the bank of a narrow river, his body turned to them as he carved on a lump of wood by a small fire. She dismounted Frost, trying to detach herself from the reluctance, and steered him towards the man, gently easing him whenever he snorted his anxiety. She whistled softly to catch the man's attention, his thin back twisting to acknowledge her.

"Letrush? I got your horse."

Letrush set his piece down, nodded curtly and gestured for her to sit on a log across him.

"Here's one who keeps her word," he exclaimed loudly, the smile on his lips not reaching his nervous eyes. "Did you get the papers as well?"

Hales pulled out a sheaf of documents she had pilfered from the manor, handing them to him over the orange glow of the fire. He took them with a grateful noise and fumbled out a dingy bag, jingling with the sound of many dozens of coins. She could almost see the Dragon's bearded chin embossed into their gold faces.

"All my thanks," he announced, his husky voice tremulous, his hands shaky as he shuffled through the papers. Hales turned to look longingly over at Frost, morose that she could not keep such a fine-bred stallion for herself. She contemplated threatening Letrush for Frost, her hand slowly drifting towards the knife holstered in her boot, until the whiny conscience told her the poor bard deserved more than being deceived twice. It seemed he had been thinking the same thought as well, for he let out a small whimper of relief when her hand jerked over to the wooden carving.

Letrush had considerably relaxed to her afterwards, even offering some of his hearty rabbit stew before she decided to head back to town at dawn. A wide grin was plastered on his sun-browned face as he trotted off with gleaming white Frost, and Hales forced herself to turn away before a rock could fling itself into Letrush's front teeth. Because of some fortunate circumstance the suits of armour from back at the manor had not managed to track her down. She endured the long hours of walking back to Riften with jumbled thoughts that were interspersed with images of straight, white mane and strong galloping hooves.

* * *

By high noon, the wooden watchtowers outside Riften came into view. They stood sentinel beside the rising road, tall and looming, each draped in the ragged purple banners that flapped in the light aspen breeze. Several helmed guards roamed about the area, some standing under the roof of each tower. She ignored the greetings and the questioning looks, trudging off into the open gates of the city, her feet so familiar with the stones and the wood that she had no trouble finding her corner amidst the bustle of many moving bodies. A heavy sigh loosened itself as she sank against the low paved wall, the sounds of chattering shoppers and metal hammering against metal filling her ears as she glared at the flow of city life before her.

Riften, though seemingly idyllic, was a boatwreck of a town. Those were the exact words Hales had thought to herself when she had first wandered into its wide streets a year ago. The town was a primarily wooden structure built over the eastern docks of a vast oceanic lake, and its location at the southeast corner of Skyrim made it a golden capital for fishing trade. But that was long ago, long before Morrowind, to the east, had fallen into an ashen wasteland, and long before the Imperial city southbound was torn asunder by the Great War. Now Riften was merely a capitalist center that strived to maintain the wet pillars that held it up. Its inhabitants were harshly halved into the struggling poor and the rich business owners. And there was yet the matter of the thieves establishing the city as their own.

"Ei, Hales, always so downtrodden."

Hales scowled up at a cat-man standing before her, his golden feline eyes smiling deviously as he tugged her hair to earn her attention. She shuffled over to allow him some space, not at all minding that they looked like dirty urchins, and he conjured a red apple from somewhere, handing it to her with a black-furred claw. Hales ignored the apple for a long moment before snatching it away, her ears burning as he laughed the familiar trill at her.

"How was your little adventure?"

"What do you want me to say? It went well."

"That is good to hear," he said with a dismaying finality. Hales directed a confused look at him and he laughed at her once more, his claw ruffling her wily hair as she bit furtively into her apple, sweet juice tanging her stale mouth.

"Let this one say it for you - the horse was very pretty."

"Go away, Halco."

"And Hales wanted it, yes? But horses are expensive. If you were as bold as this one," Halco gestured to himself, stretching his cat-like face into a wide, long-toothed grimace that she knew was a smile, "You would have simply buried your knife in the bard's throat and taken the horse for yourself."

Halco himself was a boisterous member of the Thieves Guild, and was, for better or worse, Hales's closest friend. He was born unto luck, learning to pick locks and pockets with prodigious skill as a cub, ever stealthy and not once having been caught. That fact always frustrated Hales to Oblivion; Halco was taller, heavier, and much more striking in appearance, being an anthropic cat, while she was small and unnoticeable - and still he was by a tenfold the better one.

"Haven't you got something else to do? Break into someone's house?"

Halco's ears flicked. "It is daytime. Break-ins are preferable at night, when everyone is sleeping. No, there is nothing to do aside from bothering. Though there is something to tell," he looked about him surreptitiously, leaning closer to her after a guard had passed well beyond hearing. "This one hears a rumor of another slaughter out of town. The guards will not let anyone know of it. A guildmember was running by when they found the bodies."

Hales rolled her eyes and turned away from Halco, though eagerly straining her ears against the city noise to hear him. He had been feeding her an excited broadcast about a couple of attacks in the farms and mills outskirting Riften. Whilst Halco was certain they were something to keep watch for, she was quick to attribute them to animal violence, perfectly natural and even necessary in population control.

"Ah, Hales, you have not yet heard the entire story! I know what you are thinking - a bear could have easily broken in and killed them, I agree. But it is not so simple this time."

His mischievous eyes delved into hers, a gleam of triumph clouding the gold, and she dared raise a skeptic eyebrow at him, telling herself that she wasn't urging him on.

"The guards did not need a thorough investigation to figure this was amiss. One of the bodies they found was not anyone at all."

"What's that mean?" Hales drawled, against her judgement.

"There were three people living in the barn. Three corpses were discovered, mangled and bled dry, but it was not all the same people. One of the men was gone. They could not recognize the other."

Hales snorted obnoxiously into her apple. A passer-by in finery wrinkled her nose at the sound and Hales glared in response. "How's this any different? He could've ran away, the other one could've been a traveler who rushed in when he saw the- bear."

Halco nodded in thoughtful acknowledgement, the bobbing rhythm finding a way to irritate Hales. That was something the cat did when he would entertain her input, belying his knowledge of something she did not know or had failed to pick up. She lurched her thigh hard against his and he chuckled. "The guildmember who saw it could not pass the opportunity. He snuck in to loot when the guards where not looking.

"That one got a close-up of the corpse. They could not recognize it because everything was eaten. Face, chest, stomach. The only thing he could say about it was it had_ loooong_ hair like a woman."

Hales stared. "So?"

"So," said Halco in a heaving sigh. "Bears do not eat people. Nor do they kidnap and throw away garbage."

At this point Hales lost all interest. She saw the look in Halco's eye and knew what he was insinuating. She rolled the brown-streaked core of her apple across the wide street, watching people lift their foots over it until coming to a halt under the blacksmith's workbench. She wondered how far away Letrush would have gotten by now, the cruel part within her hoping he had been mauled off by a bear, Frost galloping back towards the town stables for her.

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_Thanks so much for reading :) I had published this chapter earlier, as part of the second one, then came back to edit and cut in two. This now merely a prologue-sort. Please, criticism of all kind is more than appreciated. I'd love to be able to ease myself into the writing community somehow, as writing (rather than reading) fanfiction is all new to me._


	2. The Wolf Did Sigh At Our Mother's Womb

**II. THE WOLF DID SIGH AT OUR MOTHER'S WOMB**

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When there was nothing to do in a big city teeming with city-way activities, the people of Riften would often hang by the shores of the lake to fish and fowl. The man who owned the last fishery in town had no qualms over the salmon and spadetails lost; business was always good and his workers were happy enough. Lake Honrich was an entire world in itself, stretching so far and deep and brimming with strange aquatic animals that squawked and buzzed and arched from out of the water. In the summer people would boast off their catches and roast them over a campfire, talking about life, laughing at each other under an indigo blue sky. It was fortunate that not many people ventured out to the shores in the colder winter night, as Hales would surely be thrown into jail for what she was attempting amidst the aspen trees.

The Jarl's violent brute of a son had whisked away a small group of guards with him in the black night, sounds of metal clanking beneath their heavy cloaks. Hales was greedily stuffing down salvaged pig scraps when he billowed through the stones, not showing any sign he had seen her. One of the guards jerked his cowled head at her and she raised a slimy hand in supplication, beseeching him for alms. Beggars were always left ignored in the puddles of the city. The procession went on until they went through the wooden gates. The gatekeeper did not offer to light their torches, had they any, and when the small crack between the massive doors was shut Hales made her move after them.

Masser and Secunda were obscured by an overcast sky, blanketing the night in dark shadows that eased Hales's passage through the street. She reached one of the trees rooted against the northernmost wall, checking her surroundings for patrolling guards before planting her foot into a crevice in the stone to boost her onto the bypass. A sturdy log had been embedded into the tree, steeply angling over the wall's edge, hidden beneath golden leaves. Hales latched her leg over the junction of the two trunks and clambered onto the log, crossing over the high city wall as she scrambled on. The log ended with a taller tree on the opposite side of the wall, its trunk lined with carved footholds that guided her descent from high branch to leaf-littered floor. She saw the movement of cloaked figures and crept after them along the lake's shore.

She was curious of the secret urgency that manifested in this moment. It was common knowledge that Harrald Law-Giver, proud supporter of the Stormcloak rebellion and opportunistic basher of skulls, was excessively lazy and uninterested in anything that did not involve savage sword-swinging. And here he was stealing into the wild, with a company of well-trained guards behind him. It was exciting, and Hales was smiling at the prospects of knowing something Halco did not.

The troop marched on through the silent trees. They met no one but for the occasional stray wolf that was quickly felled with a mechanical pluck of the bow. That swift stroke kept Hales consistent with her measured distance.

Eventually the long trek ended at a farm sitting by an inlet of the lake. Rain had begun falling from the black sky. Hales resolved to remain behind the trees that circled the farm, sparse as they were, watching Harrald lead his guards through the cold downpour. Several figures stood huddled out beside the barren cropfields; Hales had never inched near this farm and she could only wonder if they were a family or a union of farmers living together. Someone was lurking in patrol around the edges of the area. The farmers met Harrald's company with eager relief.

Harrald spoke to a dark elf drenched in his farmer's tunic, his tone loud and hands animated.

"...seen her early before evening, sky being cloudied up and all... Ran as fast as I could, thank Azura she didn't see me..."

"Are you certain? If you weren't drunk or high on skooma at all, we really will need to deal with her, and in this _frigid _rain..."

The rain was quickly picking up, spattering large drops on Hales's face. Thunder cracked against the noise of water showering the earth. Some of Harrald's troop joined in the patrol around the farm, their cowled heads peering inquisitively into the trees opposite Hales. She marvelled at whatever animal was so fatal that the Jarl's apathetic son would volunteer for its extermination. Halco's offer of vampires soon began to consume her mind.

"Yes, yes, I wasn't imagining it. Would've killed her myself if I still had my bow, dammit... Your family's obsession with this war, Harrald, the Thieves Guild is getting stronger by the day..."

"Shut up, farmer. How far off into the woods did you see her?"

"One or two miles towards Shor's Stone. You'd best be careful. Wouldn't want the Jarl's son to be chewed off at the face…"

Harrald stomped off northward from the farm. One of the guards stayed back to help shepherd over the farmers, the rest ducking through the rain after Harrald, bows and warhammers all drawn. In the darkness Hales followed their path back into deep forest, iron knife pulled free from her soggy boot. The disturbances of her clumsy creeping had been drowned out by water and thunder, her fear of the strange animal devoured by prideful assurance that the guards would take care of it before it could pounce on her. She was absently thinking of more explanations to feed them in the occasion they would catch her, when a hard body trampled her face down into the mud.

Her yelp had been muted by the pounding of the rain. Hales felt a dagger press the skin of her neck, pushing into the ball of her throat. She gagged from the pressure, confused as she felt hot blood trickle down onto her lips rather than her collar, and she became aware of the painful throbbing on the bridge of her nose. Her arms and back budged frenetically against the weight, earning only a forceful press into the black sludge. A man's voice breathed into her thumping ear.

"Don't move. My master will come later when the others are done."

Sounds of battle, clangs and thuds and shocks that pierced the air issued from where Harrald was. Stupidity could only be cackling right now. They were ambushed, and Hales could not accept that any of this was happening. Like an animal for slaughter she could only squirm and squeal, befittingly, her mind filling with the childish hate for Halco, for always being_ better,_ and for introducing the concept of sneaking to her. It would be a shame if he would end up living longer, when she was the one who wanted more from life than piling up and squandering away money.

The man on top of her lifted his head momentarily as the skirmish went on, howls growing louder and sharper while Hales scrounged for escape. Soon the screams died out to a lone whimper, and a violent cracking sound led in the silence. Hales grasped against the rain for breath. Her captor raised his torso slightly to call into the trees.

"Over here! I got another one here!"

Several footsteps splashed through the thunder, coming towards them. The man grabbed hold of her shaking wrists in a vise grip, his other hand pulling her up with him by the hair. Dirt and blood dribbled into her mouth as she struggled to get up on her wobbly feet. A small voice at the back of her head told her to run away, and she tried - but he clutched her hair painfully and her legs buckled from the hard kick to her shins.

"Don't run, you were doing so well," he told her in a strange, friendly tone. "You know, despite that I'll still tell my master you were complacent enough. Hopefully she'll make-"

A heaving grunt emerged through the rain. The man dropped his hold on Hales; surprise, and distant relief, gushed through her as one of the hold guards struck the flat end of his warhammer into the man's shoulder. He staggered down crying in agony, dirty ball of a hand over his shoulder, his round eyes alarmed. A few more cloaked figures sloshed into the scene, Harrald fast behind them. One of the guards was clutching the torn flesh on his arm, but aside from that they all seemed as if they hadn't been touched by battle.

"Don't attack him!"

Harrald pushed the guard with the warhammer aside and brought the tip of his sword under the man's chin, obviously excited by the opportunity.

"No sudden moves! Were they with you?" He turned to Hales. "Were they with him?"

"What're you asking her for? She's one of them! What's she doing creeping after us?"

"I let her follow us," he said off-handedly. "My dear clodhopper, you've been seduced by those vampires. We killed them all. If you're not yourself yet there's more of them around."

"You let me follow you? After _vampires_?"

"Where are they? I swear I'll sink your face in if you don't cooperate." Hales felt chagrin. It seemed as if Harrald was hunting vampires for a reason that had nothing to do with the safety of his townspeople.

"I… I don't know!" The farmer moaned, his large hands wiping the water on his face in distress. "She said she'll come when we were done. I-I didn't think this would happen instead!"

"You're lucky I'm already angry." Harrald sheathed his sword and beckoned for one of the guards to tie him up. The farmer was bawling away when they had secured his bulk of a body to a tree, the thick rope cutting into his bare meaty chest in a way that reminded Hales of the butcher's stall in the markets. She felt suddenly embarrassed that this gentle mass of a man had cut her down into fear and submission, breaking her nose effortlessly. Harrald approached her with a shifty look in his eye, a drenched cloth dumping itself onto her chest as he addressed her.

"Clean up your nose. You're coming with me."

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There was a recurring subject of conversation in town that involved Harrald's legacy when he was to become Jarl of Riften. Like his father, he was audacious, proud, and war-minded in the old Nord ways. Most of the people ridiculed him for his barbarism and how he dedicated too much into training his sword hand against the guards, but only behind his back, naturally, as they feared he would send a thug to beat them into politeness had he gotten wind of their gibes. Only the blacksmith was ever permitted to directly call him lazy and brutish, and Hales suspected it was more a matter of physical size rather than close association. But of course everyone was eager to pitch in their opinion on the sort of leader they all suspected Harrald would grow to be.

The barkeep at the tavern was the first to introduce Hales into this strangely addictive sort of gossip. She had given her a dose of what the regular patrons all said.

"Tactless, impertinent, self-absorbed, hot-headed, savage… We're all pretty sure this town's gonna drive down into the shore when he's Jarl. And now I'm thankful he's too stupid to know who's really running the city, for once."

Hales had prodded her for more the entire night, curious of what the beggars, the merchants and the nobles had all shared in thought. It was odd to hear a small unity in Riften, and she wanted to explore it, even when it was something so trivial. Or perhaps it was not, as a tiny part in Hales's heart wanted Harrald to be a better leader than his mother, or the fraudulent business owner who pulled the heartstrings of this forsaken city.

For some reason, Harrald had taken her along with him to search after the remaining vampires. Though wary she was glad for it, as it meant she was fully pardoned of any offenses she might have committed by creeping after them in the night. His detachment had clubbed and dismembered a party of six ambushers. Harrald established that the one vampire controlling the farmer remained in the area, likely unaware that his advocates now lay buried in the mud. They left the injured guard to recuperate while watching over the farmer, allowing Harrald's reassembled troop to venture north towards Shor's Stone, a hamlet nourished by an old mine. Harrald did not believe they would need to get close into the settlement before encountering the vampires. He led the group, speaking only to warn of wolves bounding towards them, striding over the wet forest floor in big steps that left Hales at the tail of their formation.

In her nervousness, she tried to spark up small talk with the tall woman who was swift with her bow. She only answered shortly and Hales decided to while the journey away by combing fingers through the tangles of her wet hair, until they were sleek in the rain. Lightning painted the guards ahead of her white once in a while, offering her a beacon through the dark that engulfed them. Within several minutes they had entered into woodland that seemed to be a transitional zone from yellow aspen to pine trees that shot from the ground like tall cones of green. The air was a whirling fragrance of sweet honey aspen and dark, heavy pine, mixed with the smell of rainwater seeping into the earth. Hales wondered how her nose could still pick up scent despite the metal reek of blood that coagulated within.

The group halted to a stop when Harrald had spotted smoke curling against the stubborn flow of the rain. A white glow danced against the shadow of the black night and the trees that stood watching. He beckoned for Hales to move over to his side, the hint of a smirk twitching the side of his mouth as she looked at the other guards, baffled that he would call upon her. Gulping down her anxiety, she crept uncertainly to him and he mumbled into her ear. "Climb up somewhere and tell me who's making that light."

Hales's reaction was quick. "Why me? I'm terrible at this!"

Harrald made an impatient noise in response. She sighed, forging ahead with renewed vigilance to search the cold, pouring landscape for a low trunk to climb. A tremendous crash of thunder shook her bones, small tingles dancing on her broken nose and along her scalp. Hales willed herself not to look back at Harrald and the guards. In time she found a white trunk growing from the floor at an oblique incline, steep but not too much that it was impossible to crawl along its length. A large pine tree evaded the spike of the trunk by several inches; she considered jumping off the angled trunk and onto the low branches of the pine. If she was successful, if the branches could hold her weight, she would only have to find a way to pull her body up along their hairy limbs spaced fairly apart. She clambered on to the bent aspen tree and braced herself for the jump into the pine. To her pleased surprise, the branches did not even bounce against her feet.

Hales soon discovered the trick to climbing branches. Awkwardly, she wrapped her limbs around the mossy trunk, legs scuffling her upwards until her arms could haul the rest of her body onto every next branch. Had Halco been here to see this he would be guffawing on the floor, spurting out unintelligible remarks that would have set Hales into a fiery rage. She welded the embarrassment into determination to push herself up higher, until she had reached a branch high enough to survey over the strange brightness.


End file.
